Even surgical robots need a break from the demands of the operating room every once in a while. At Seattle's Swedish Medical Center, the director of robotic surgery recently used some downtime to test the da Vinci robot's skills at another task that requires precision, dexterity and fine motor skills: constructing a paper airplane.

In the 3-and-a-half-minute video below, James Porter, MD, manipulates the "arms" and graspers of one of Swedish Medical Center's surgical robots to delicately fold a tiny piece of paper into an airplane "to demonstrate how this device gives surgeons greater surgical precision and dexterity over existing approaches," explains the hospital, which posted the video on its YouTube page.

And, just for the fun of it, Dr. Porter even takes his new paper plane — barely the size of a penny — for a few test flights with the robotic instruments. Watch the video below for the full effect.

UPDATE: A reader points out that Dr. Porter isn't the first to test out the da Vinci's fine motor skills on the art of folding paper. Here's an earlier video of Norihiko Ishikawa, MD, PhD, of the department of telesurgery and geomedicine at Japan's Kanazawa University, making origami with the surgical robot.

Irene Tsikitas